The Sentinel (22 page)

She grinned. ‘Daniel Kwon?’

I stared at her in disbelief. ‘Yeah you know him?’

Jasmine nodded. ‘Zeki,’ she said simply. Of course he was.

‘Well that’s ok then, so you are healing in some way like a Zeki. You are just adding to the potency with your powers,’ Jasmine seemed relieved by this.

I looked at her in confusion, but she waved away my looks of uncertainty. ‘It means I can teach you how to achieve deep sleep.’

I smiled wryly, still bewildered over the revealing of Daniel.

‘Lie down,’ she instructed.

Keen to learn, I did as I was told.

She covered me with my duvet.

‘It’s important to keep warm,’ she explained as I eyed her suspiciously.

‘I don’t want to sleep now; I just want to learn how to do it.’

‘Yes, yes, but I have to explain what you need to do, now close your eyes.’

I reluctantly obeyed, feeling drowsy as soon as they were closed.

‘You have to keep very still, so your body can relax, then you have to isolate the part of your brain that is responsible for sleep, the pons, it’s back here.’ She reached round to touch the base of my skull at the very top of my neck.’

I opened my eyes. ‘How do I do that?’

‘Ok, I’m going to send a very small amount of my healing power to the pons, so you can feel where it is, then you can find it yourself. It’s not my intention to make you fall asleep, but you might do because you’re tired anyway.’

‘Can you wake me if I do?’

She shook her head. ‘I can, but it’s best not to.’ She looked at me waiting for me to give her permission. I nodded, reluctantly.

‘Try to follow where I direct my healing abilities.’

I closed my eyes again and felt her cool hand press gently against my forehead. I felt a warm fizzy feeling drift through my brain and settle at the top of my spine and then I felt my body go numb.

I was back on my beach in Mexico, sitting under my palm tree. I was alone this time, no Seth to keep me company. I pulled my knees up to my chest and wrapped my arms around them, lying my head on top of them as I stared out across the shimmering waves. I hoped I wouldn’t be here for long, as beautiful as this place was, I was keen to wake back up and get on with my Zeki training. Sleeping just seemed such a waste of precious time. But how long would I need to recover from the stunt I pulled today. Time was relative here too, it might seem like hours or days here but was actually only minutes in the waking world. What if I woke up and Jasmine was gone. Suddenly I didn’t want to sit and wait to recover. I could sleep properly tonight. I wanted to wake up and as soon as I made that decision, I did.

I sat up feeling groggy. Jasmine was sitting on the end of the bed, cross legged, watching me with concern.

My head span and my eyes seemed heavy. I shook my head willing to clear it.

‘Eve for goodness sake, you can’t just wake up from a deep sleep like that, it leaves you feeling worse than if you hadn’t slept at all. When you’re in a deep sleep you should stay there until your body is ready to wake up. You will wake up naturally when you’re fully recovered.’

I swung my legs off the bed and stood up, willing my body to wake up properly. I found, as I crumpled and hit the floor, that it wasn’t quite ready to do that. I quickly stood back up and sat on the bed, avoiding Jasmine’s ‘I told you so’ exasperated look.

She sighed. ‘You ready to try it yourself?’

I nodded.

‘You need to think of that golden ball of light travelling to the part of the brain that I touched before.’

I lay down again, just in case my own medicine had the same effect as Jasmine’s. I didn’t want to fall off the bed. I closed my eyes and imagined a golden ball of light and I directed it to the back of my brain, leaving a bubbling feeling in its wake. As soon as it touched the area that Jasmine had touched before I fell back to sleep.

I was back on my beach again, lying under the leaves of the palm trees, the warm sun filtering through the leaves. I stood up with annoyance and wanted to wake up again. And even more groggily than last time, I did.

‘Eve! Eli was right you are stubborn.’

I felt like I had been drugged. I willed my brain to connect with my mouth, willed my eyes not to close again.

‘So that’s it, that’s what I need to do to achieve a deep sleep?’

Jasmine nodded, with some degree of annoyance. ‘Yes, but there’s no point in bringing on a state of deep sleep if you are going to force yourself awake before your body is ready. I recommend you don’t try it again until you are ready to commit to a few hours.’

I nodded, sleepily. It was dark outside now, it would be time for me to go to bed soon anyway. ‘Thanks Jasmine, will you come back tomorrow and teach me some more about healing.’

‘I suppose.’ She sniffed, huffily.

‘Thanks.’

She gave me a small smile and left. I gave myself a few minutes to come round properly and then swung my legs off the bed and walked out onto the landing. I walked to the bedroom Alexandria was in and hovered outside the door. I wanted to check on her but the last time I’d spoken to her, I’d ordered her to obey me, told her she was failing me. I felt embarrassed of my delusions of grandeur, of my arrogance and turned away. Just then the bedroom door opened and Lucas was standing there grinning at me.

‘Thought I could feel you outside, come in.’ He opened the door wider to let me by.

I shook my head, backing away, but Lucas rolled his eyes and took my hand and forcibly pulled me in.

Alexandria was lying on the bed, leaning against Eli, who was sitting on the bed with her, his arm wrapped lovingly round her shoulders. I felt a surge of jealousy jolt through me, like I had received an electric shock. I missed Seth so much. I focussed my attention on Alexandria, trying not to see what I couldn’t have.

‘How are you feeling?’ I asked, shyly. I was so embarrassed over what I had said earlier. I knew it was the only way that I could think of to get her to fight for her life, but still, to demand someone obeys your orders was still a conceited thing to do. To make matters worse, it wasn’t the first time I had pulled rank to get what I wanted. What was I turning into?

‘Loads better, thanks Eve. The great thing about being a Deus is we heal quick. I’ll be back on my feet by tomorrow.’ She looked at me. ‘Are you ok?’

‘Yeah I’m fine,’ I mumbled, embarrassed that the attention had been so swiftly diverted back on to me again.

‘You look tired,’ Eli said. ‘Even more tired than before.’

Arghh! ‘I’m fine.’

‘No that’s not what I was talking about, there’s something else, you seem… awkward?’ Alexandria looked at me in confusion.

I pulled a face, wondering how to broach the subject, wondering if I even should.

‘She’s embarrassed over what she said to you earlier, when she ordered you to stay alive, when she said that you were failing her,’ Lucas explained.

I stared at him, incredulously. ‘Lucas!’

‘What?’

‘How on earth did you know that?’

He shrugged, casually. ‘I don’t know, I just did,’

He really didn’t see anything wrong with this. ‘You know what I’m thinking?’

‘Yeah I guess.’

I blushed. ‘Everything?’

‘No, just flashes, there are gaps. Though the flashes are becoming more common and the gaps less frequent,’ he explained simply, as if it was the most reasonable explanation in the world.

‘Can you all…’ I faltered over this new revelation.

‘No, it seems Lucas is more in tune with you than the rest of us are and becoming more in tune with you by the day,’ Eli explained. ‘It happens sometimes when we work closely with each other, we instinctively know what each other is thinking or feeling. Though the degree of Lucas’s connection is quite rare.’

Lucas shrugged, looking as bewildered by it as I was.

I frowned, not really sure what to make of it. My thoughts were private. I wasn’t sure if I was happy for Lucas to be walking through my head, picking up what he wanted like he was shopping in a supermarket, analysing it and sharing what he thought was appropriate with the rest of the Guardians.

Lucas pulled a face. ‘Sorry Eve, I didn’t think of it like that.’

‘You just did it again, didn’t you?’

‘Sorry,’ he said again. ‘I don’t try to feel what you are thinking; it’s just there in my head.’

I cringed as I thought about what he had access to, mostly my hugely inappropriate feelings for Seth, how I was so scared I wouldn’t be ready to save the world, how I was going to die trying.

His eyes widened then he frowned. ‘Not if I’ve got anything to do with it.’

‘Lucas?’ Eli asked.

‘
Lucas, no!’
I shouted in his head. ‘
These are private thoughts, you have no right to them and certainly no right to start repeating what is in my head for the benefit of my Guardians.’

‘Sorry. The Guardians don’t tend to have secrets from each other, we don’t feel the need to respect each other’s privacy, we just tell it as it is. I will try to ignore these thoughts that pop into my head from now on……Do you really think you’re going to die to save the world?’

I sighed, deeply. ‘
Yes, Persia has foreseen it, and I have to agree with her, look at how tired I get from using my powers, something as big as saving the world is bound to kill me.’

He swallowed. ‘
I never realised… the Oraculum created you to die?’

I nodded, sadly. ‘
Please don’t say anything to the other Guardians about this, especially not to Seth or Quinn, please Lucas.’

Lucas nodded. ‘
You have my word.’

‘Can you only feel what I am thinking when I’m thinking it?’

‘
I don’t know, I think so.’

I returned my attention to Alexandria and realised I still hadn’t addressed what Lucas had confessed on my behalf. I took a deep breath. ‘Alexandria, I’m sorry about what I said earlier, I’m sorry that…’

‘Eve,’ she interrupted. ‘You have nothing to be sorry for, you saved my life, and you were right, I was letting you down, I was giving up too easily. It won’t happen again.’

I cringed again and feeling very small I left the room and went downstairs.

As I passed the front door, I saw a pink envelope sticking out the letterbox. I pulled it out and my stomach lurched when I saw my name in the same curly handwriting as the first letter that was delivered to the church the day before.

18. The second warning

I realised my hands were shaking as I tore it open. This letter was much more explicit in its content.

‘Your blood will cleanse the earth. You will die in two days.’

I was suddenly pinned to the wall by Caleb, who had evidently read the note over my shoulder.

‘Search the house,’ he growled. The Guardians shot upstairs and through the downstairs rooms as Eli flittered to my side, taking the note from the tiny gap that Caleb had left between him and the wall.

Other Guardians came in from outside and Abe and Matthew came to us as the Outer Guard helped with the search.

‘They know where she lives,’ Matthew muttered, taking the note.

‘We’ve not exactly been discreet with the amount of Guardians coming and going,’ Caleb said.

‘What would you have me do, reduce the guard to preserve the secret? She has to be protected,’ Eli said.

‘We need to move her,’ Abe said.

Caleb pressed me further into the wall as I tried to free myself from my protective prison.

‘I don’t agree. So they know where she lives. They can’t get into the house, there’s too many of the Guardians living in this street for them to get anywhere near,’ Eli said.

‘They hand delivered the note, Eli, they got close enough,’ Abe said. ‘That Shape Shifter last night got too close.’

I could see Eli was torn.

‘She could stay with Seth,’ suggested Matthew.

‘No absolutely not. That was the deal. I would do whatever you wanted as long as Seth wasn’t involved,’ I protested.

‘I like it here. The houses are built in such a way that really they could only ever enter through the front door. The other safe house is too open, they could attack from all angles,’ said Eli.

‘We’d see them coming. She could slide somewhere else,’ said Abe.

‘I don’t want to rely on her powers. She’s not strong or skilled enough.’

‘I am here,’ I said, indignantly.

‘The house is clear!’ Lucas called from upstairs.

Eli sighed and Caleb released me. ‘What do you want to do Eve?’

I looked around as my Guardians returned from their searches. ‘I trust you guys completely. I trust you Eli. If you want to stay here, then we stay here.’

Eli nodded. ‘We’ll stay here. We will intensify the guard, have more staying in the house, more patrolling outside. We will position some in the back garden too.’

‘Ok.’

Abe made a noise of dissent before his team left.

I took the note back from Eli and read it again. Despite that my guard had suddenly doubled, I couldn’t help feeling the fear of my impending demise.

‘They really want me dead don’t they?’ I looked up into Eli’s eyes, ferocious with the determination to keep me safe. ‘I know, I know, they won’t get close but…’

‘But nothing, Eve, they won’t get anywhere near you.’

I swallowed. There was no point in arguing. Though I still didn’t feel any better about it. Two days left. Was this really it? There had been so much I wanted to do with my life. There was so much I wanted to see. Suddenly there was one thing I had to do. If this was it, if I really was going to die on the 21
^st
, then I had to see Seth one more time.

‘I’m going for a shower,’ I muttered as I ran upstairs. Some things were still sacred as I quickly closed myself in the bathroom. Immediately I slid to Seth who was lying on his bed reading a book. He looked up when I arrived and threw the book down and stood up.

‘What are you doing here? You banish me from coming anywhere near you but it’s ok for you to break the rules and come to me.’ I climbed up onto the bed and stood up so we were eye to eye. ‘Do you know how humiliating it is for me to be babysat by a bunch of Guardians. I cannot believe you would do that to me. I can’t believe…’